Lawsuit over feeding seeks to give homeless their day at the beach

ttorney John David, who represents Abbott and his Love Thy Neighbor organization, filed a motion in Broward court Wednesday to enforce the 2001 court injunction that allowed the beach feedings, which are in a picnic area adjacent to a public bathroom.

ttorney John David, who represents Abbott and his Love Thy Neighbor organization, filed a motion in Broward court Wednesday to enforce the 2001 court injunction that allowed the beach feedings, which are in a picnic area adjacent to a public bathroom.

Mike Clary and Larry BarszewskiSun Sentinel

Arnold Abbott draws his line in the sand: The sand of Fort Lauderdale beach

When city commissioners stayed up until the early-morning hours last month to pass an ordinance placing tough new restrictions on outdoor feeding programs, the aim was to break up congregations of homeless downtown.

But in challenging the new law, homeless advocate Arnold Abbott drew a different line in the sand — at the beach.

"The homeless have the same right to the beauty and placidity of our beach as anyone else," Abbott said. "Anybody can use the beach except for one group, the homeless, and that's what I'm fighting for."

The 90-year-old World War II veteran was willing to move one of his weekly feedings from Stranahan Park to a church this week, and said he will take up Mayor Jack Seiler on his promise to help him find a permanent downtown location.

But Abbott turned down two alternatives the city offered — the Church by the Sea and the International Swimming Hall of Fame — for the weekly beachside feeding he has conducted in a city park since 1991. Court decisions in 2001 and 2002 upheld his right to feed there — and he's gone back to court to make sure those feedings continue.

Because of the growing controversy, Commissioner Dean Trantalis on Thursday called for putting the city's new law on hold.

"I feel we should suspend enforcement until we're able to establish a clearer path to making sure we're able to take care of the homeless in a way that works for everybody," Trantalis said. He cast the lone vote against the ordinance and is concerned that Abbott and groups doing outdoor feedings weren't consulted in drafting the new rules.

"Right now, we need to seek peace," he said.

Attorney John David, who represents Abbott and his Love Thy Neighbor organization, filed a motion in Broward court Wednesday to enforce the 2001 court injunction that allowed the beach feedings, which are in a picnic area adjacent to a public bathroom.

But city officials say they've done what Judge Estella May Moriarty required the city to do if it wanted to regulate outdoor feedings. Moriarty's ruling said the beach feedings could continue until the city "designates an alternative site on public property" or "amends its zoning code to provide locations" where the feedings are permitted.

The controversy, which simmered for years after the court ruling, received new attention in 2009 when voters elected a new mayor and three new commissioners — the same four who approved the new law.

"Feeding goes on all over the city," said former Commissioner Bobby DuBose, one of the 2009 class, who left the commission this month to become a state representative.

"It just escalated and just started getting out of control," DuBose said.

In particular, commissioners have been besieged by complaints from merchants and residents about large numbers of men and women who gathered at Stranahan Park next to the Broward Main Library for regular food distributions.

Within a year of the 2009 elections, commissioners began looking at designating one or more feeding sites, but each one they considered ran into opposition. After that, commissioners directed staff to look at changing the zoning code to achieve their objectives — and do it in a legally defensible way.

The new ordinance is the result of that effort, tightening the legal screws in hopes of pushing the activists' operations from the street into nearby churches.

The law sets out the permitted zoning locations and required conditions. The groups must provide portable toilets if restrooms aren't available. They can't hold a feeding within 500 feet of a residential neighborhood. They have to ensure the food is properly heated and that sanitation is provided.

Abbott's lawsuit is being supported by the Rev. Mark Sims, one of two pastors cited with him this month at Stranahan Park for violating the ordinance. Sims, of St. Mary Magdalene Episcopal Church in Coral Springs, filed court papers intervening in Abbott's suit on Thursday.

Sims said a more comprehensive approach must be taken to tackle homelessness in the city. Shelters are at capacity and there are not enough beds for all in need, the pastor said, adding that one shelter he checked had a 90-day wait.

Sims is represented by attorneys Bruce Rogow and Bill Scherer.

Scherer said the city's homeless ordinance is being challenged on "bedrock constitutional grounds.

"The people who get cited are the people doing the feeding, not the people doing the eating," he said. "So it's not the homeless, it's the people that are exercising their right to do good, to do what they feel in their conscience they should do to help the least among us that are really being infringed."

Abbott normally begins dishing up plates of hot food at 5:30 p.m., and his van and his volunteers are usually gone from the beach an hour later, David said. There are few beachgoers or tourists there at that hour, David said.

Abbott said he could imagine moving his Wednesday feeding indoors only if offered a beachfront location. "If it were a place such as at a hotel, if it has a view of the beach, I would possibly consider it," he said. "That makes a lot of sense to me."

But any agreement on moving off the beach, he said, would have to be approved by the court.

"I am not the one who started this fight. The city started it," Abbott said.